Shiki began as a request for a short winter-themed piece for the Hämäläis-Osakunnan Laulajat choir in Helsinki. It eventually grew into a four seasons-type cycle on haiku by a 20th century Japanese monk Santoka Taneda.

The music of Shiki is a progression through various states of near-stasis. The main impression the composer wished to convey was the one of absolute stillness at the heart of each scene, of communion with the outer world, as if the viewer were drawing the landscape into him, and at the same time dissolving himself into it. The voices are treated texturally, as well as textually, moving on slow masses, with the soft but precisecely colored vowels of Japanese creating the basic sounds, and the sharper consonants giving them shape and definition.